3RD/4TH OF JANUARY – REPRESENTING November & Connectedness

WELCOME TO YOUR Eleventh WILD NIGHT

Today we will be looking at the topic of “Connectedness” from several different view points. One is our connection with nature, the other our connection with “god” (I will refer to it as “source” moving forward but feel free to use the word of your choice) and the last one that we will be looking at today is the connection we share with others and with ourselves. Going after anything in an extreme manner, even the search for connectedness & love, is however another form of disbalance. Keep that in mind throughout your life journey and use self-reflection as a regular check-up.

THE DAILY PRACTICE

(YOU CAN SKIP THIS PART, IF YOU READ ANY OF THE OTHER WILD NIGHTS)

As the overall theme of the wild nights is connected to the more subtle energies in life, that is what we will be focusing on. Each day will have one particular theme, however ALL wild nights will have a few things in common. 

DURING EACH OF THE WILD NIGHTS YOU CAN:

• Wishes: Pick one of your 13 wishes at random (without looking at it) and burn it. DO NOT burn all 13 wishes. One wish should be left over for the 6th of January.
• Dreams: Write into your dream journal as soon as you wake up in the morning (starting on the 25th of December). Your dreams can give you a rough idea of what might be in store for you next year, however be very mindful of how you interpret your dreams. It might simply be that you are working through the happenings of your day, so take your dreams with a grain of salt. If you feel they do represent your upcoming year, try to dig deeper with the I-Ching, your Oracle cards, a pendulum, meditation or whatever else you feel called to use to connect with your inner guidance.
• Predictions: Each of the nights/days represent one of the months of next year. You can use your oracle deck, the I-Ching or any other tool you enjoy using to connect with your intuition, to find out what the overall theme of the month of January will be.
• Journaling: You can use your diary/journal to write down what your oracle cards, the I-Ching etc. has revealed about the month of January and you can also use it in the evening, to reflect on the happenings of your day. All of these aspects can give you clues for next year.
• Smudging: Smudge your home with Sage, Palo Santo, incense sticks or whatever you feel called to use. The smoke is believed to expel negative energies, so leave your windows open for a little bit after smudging, so that those energies can leave your home.

Always remember do do what feels right to you. None of these things will help you in any way, if you just do it for the sake of doing it. Instead, even if you only do ONE of these things, but you do it with your heart and soul, that when you will see results. Now, let’s take a look at the main topic for today.

Connectedness

The desire to feel connected lies within all of us. Some of you might look for it in nature, others in religion, others are looking for it in another (human) being and hopefully some of you look for it within yourself. In the end it is all a form of the same energy that we are after – love. The more you have worked on our own happiness, health and self-love, the more you will be able to connect to the following words. Here is my humble opinion on why I believe we feel these connections to all of these aspects and how you can improve your connection with each element:

Nature

Looking at Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda or other ancient cultural medicinal practices, we notice that elements play an important role in describing the human body. Our link to nature becomes very obvious when we go to an “alternative” doctor. Not only do they talk about disbalances of elements or blockages in your life force energy, but they will also mostly prescribe medication based on plants, fruits, vegetables or herbs. Even if you have a hard time believing in such treatment methods, you would however probably agree, that we stem from elements available on Mother Earth aka Mother Nature.

The word mother is not chosen lightly in this scenario. It is the reason why we feel so drawn to Nature – because that is where we come from – at least our physical bodies. Nature makes us feel alive, blissful, energised and at peace – all at the same time. A lack of the desire of being close to nature usually stems from a traumatic event, severe allergies or our social influences. Try reflecting on what it is that might be stopping you from explore natures beauty.

Exercise:

There are so many wonderful things I could suggest to you, in regards to reconnecting with nature – the most obvious one is to simply GO OUTSIDE!

Now that the obvious has been stated – a great way to connect with nature is to immerse yourself into it. Whether it is: gardening with your bare hands, walking barefoot or taking a swim in the ocean – all of these things have the power to “ground” you. Especially if you are working with electronics most of your day, spending time in nature will help you feel more balanced aka less on edge, agitated or even agressive.

The other Exercise I would highly recommend is to combine mindfulness & photography. Whether you are using an SLR or your phone to take picture, make sure that your phone is on “airplane mode”. This will avoid distractions and give you the chance to immerse yourself in the beauty of Gaya (Mother Nature). All you need to do is:

• Grab your camera/phone and step out into nature
• Find a plant, insect or animal that grabs your attention and take your time to photograph it from different angles and viewpoints. Be patient. Magical things happen when you wait a while.
• Step into the present moment by using mindfulness. If you are unsure of how to use it, listen to the short 10 minute intro of the “mindfulness on the go” meditation from wild night #6

Source

This one might not be for everyone – especially if you don’t believe in a “superior force”, so feel free to skip ahead, even though I do think it is an important part of our self-growth process.

I personally believe, that our souls all come from the same source. You can call it god, universal life force, spirit, source, Allah or whichever name feels right to you – in the end we are all talking about the same thing. So, essentially, if we are all part of this bigger “thing”, then we are automatically all connected with one another – we all carry the same essence within us.

What I also believe, and this is just my own current explanation of the world, is that this “essence” is actually pure, unconditional love – which is exactly what we are longing for throughout our lives. Sadly, we’ve been numbed and blinded by social beliefs, our upbringing and painful events. Otherwise, if we would be taught about self-love and self-care from the very beginning, we would understand that, the only place to find this kind of love, is within us.

That means, that one more form of trying to connect with this “pure love essence” is through connecting with source directly. When practiced mindfully and by turning inwards, this can be a beautiful experience, however when taken to the extreme, you might loose yourself in following a guru, a religion, a Sekt or anything that makes you dependant of an external system.

Exercise:

Silence. Turning inwards is your path to source. You have a part of it inside of you already and your connection is always and forever there. You can not loose it. If you are not able to feel it, work on your layers. Step by step, you will feel the connection within you. If you feel ready and you believe in Source, work your way to silent meditations. This might take weeks, moths or years, but it will make you feel a love you will not find on the outside – a form of ecstasy I can not describe with words.

Relationships

A beautiful form of connecting with our inner source, is to connect with the inner source of another human being. As long as we understand that this is not a means to “fill ourselves up” but instead it is a merging of two beautiful energies, this is a wonderful experience. But most of us have not had the opportunity to fall in love with ourselves first and so we end up in co-dependant instead of uplifting, supportive and free relationships.

Most of us are taught about monogamous relationships and “prince(ss) charming”, so we end up trying to find our “missing piece”, not realising we are whole all on our own. This does not mean that you have to spend the rest of your day’s on your own it means that we should set our priorities differently. When we fall in love with ourselves first, our relationships with others will change. We become more open, confident, loving and less judgemental, jealous or controlling (only to name a few). We stop trying to find what we feel is missing, within someone else. And when we stop trying fill ourselves with parts of other people, we set them and ourselves free.

No matter if you are currently in a relationship, single, monogamous, polyamorous or whichever your preference – it all ties back to having a holistic wellbeing routine which energises you and fills you with love. If you would like to deepen your insights on this subject, try journaling by answering these questions.

Reflective questions:

1. What do I love about the people in my life?
2. What is something I expect of others but don’t uphold myself?
3. What are the conditions of my love? What would help me reduce them to free the other person?
4. What do I need from others to feel loved?

Exercise

As a last exercise, I would like to tie together all that we have done up to now, during the wild nights. This will help you to create the wellbeing routine you deserve, to bring more happiness, health and self-love into your life. You can download your Routine Schedule straight out of the Opportyounity Journal here.

It is meant to serve you as a rough idea of how you want your days to be structured. It is NOT something you need to fill out every day.

Take a look at how you would like to structure your day. Ideally your daily routines don’t change much during weekends/holidays and weekdays, but most of us would probably like to sleep a little longer, when we don’t have to get up for work, which is why there is enough space on either side of the provided time scale, to schedule your routines for both work and leisure days. 

On the Routine Schedule page, write down when you would like to dedicate your time to which tasks. You can be as detailed as you like but I would suggest keeping it simple. If something shifts in your life, at some point, or you feel you need to adapt your schedule, simply print it out once more to apply the necessary changes.

Remember to reflect on your progress every month to make sure you adjust what is not working. Use the Opportyounity Life wheel from wild night #8 in combination with the following reflective questions:

1. What am I most proud of? What has changed?
2. What did I discover about myself?
3. What was most challenging?
4. What is not working? What do I need to let go of, restructure or surrender to?